Some time ago I built a plugin with settings. I used the WordPress settings API. It was daunting, and repetitive. I built more plugins, which also had settings. As any developer, I was tired of doing repetitive tasks, and decided to write a wrapper for the WordPress settings API.

But, first a search…GitHub, and Google

A quick GitHub search for “WordPress settings” turned up a no longer supported WordPress settings API frame work. While a Google search resulted in a in a popular blog post, which I’ll summarize with a quote:

Learn the WordPress Settings API

However I strongly stress to learn how to build settings using the WordPress settings API. I did. As any season WordPress developer should. Later I gleaned from past experiences, EDD, WooCommerce, and others.

As seen in the WordPress codex, this is just too much.

What, why?

Quilt & Lumber

Over the course of the year Quilt & Lumber was born. Quilt allowed me to quickly build out settings as a tabbed interface or a single page. While being able to hook into the core code. Along with providing sanitization for all fields.

Lumber is the back bone to creating forms. Be it form fields for Quilt, WordPress post meta, or front-end HTML forms. Lumber was able to handle it.

Together they; increased my work flow, helped maintain my sanity when looking at the WordPress settings API, and provided a single point to; add additional form fields, sanitize methods, and track down bugs.